


To Forget or Forgive

by Anonymous



Category: A Heist With Markiplier (Web Series), Markiplier TV (Web Series), Who Killed Markiplier? (Web Series)
Genre: Acceptance, Angst with a Questionably Peaceful Ending, Choose Your Own Ending, Gen, Moral Ambiguity, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:55:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29924115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: There was a crippled, withered machine sitting before you, knees pulled up to its chest. There was a metal moustache grafted to its face.You didn't know why, but you felt a terrible chill.(You felt like you were forgetting something.)
Relationships: Wilford Warfstache | William J. Barnum | The Colonel & Y/N | The District Attorney
Kudos: 15
Collections: Anonymous





	1. An Unbidden Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (It's not fair, is it?)
> 
> This was your job. Even if you couldn't remember why.

There was a crippled, withered machine sitting before you, knees pulled up to its chest. There was a metal moustache grafted to its face.

You didn't know why, but you felt a terrible chill. 

(You felt like you were forgetting something.)

Wobbling a bit like you'd just woken up from a dream, you frowned as you rubbed your eyes, furrowed your brow as you tried to make sense of what was in front of you. It came back in bits and pieces that you vaguely recognized as your own. 

Your job, you recalled. It was your job to collect this… thing. To salvage it. You grimaced; it looked incredibly dirty, and the large cracks in the yellow painted abdomen don't bode well for your task, but you must have taken the job for a reason. 

You knelt down and pulled the machine into your arms, surprised at how light it was. It was heavy enough, sure, but for something so large it weighed about as much as a human would, no more and no less. That thought was kind of creepy though, so you carefully put all the memories of horror games and jumpscares to the side and tugged it upright, slinging the arm of it over your shoulder. The blunt metal plates dug into your skin, but you ignored it as you shoved hard at the back door, relieved to see that nobody had locked it — you must have propped it open or something before coming out here. 

You'd never liked the maintenance room. It was too dark and far too empty for its size; only a single suspended light above a table with two chairs to its name. It didn't help that the light was pretty dim to begin with either, and it swayed with the movement as you hastily deposited the bot into one of the chairs. The dirtier one — that was the space allocated for salvaged machines. 

(Right?)

You slid into the chair opposite to it, propped up your face on the palms of your hands. The robot looked even creepier in the light, with one eye lolling to the side and exposed wires jutting out from every joint, not to mention the fact that it's mouth was gaping open like it meant to swallow you whole. You'd be shocked if the thing even turned on in the state it was in, but you weren't exactly eager to keep touching it. 

_"Well!"_

The speakers — you assumed they were speakers, although they were oddly clear — crackled loudly, a precursor to the boisterous voice that boomed cheerily over the comms, although it trailed off a little as if the source was lost for words. It continued shortly after, a hint of humor to their tone. 

_"That's terrifying."_

You had to agree. The thing looked like that freaky possessed doll from Goosebumps, only metal and worn to shit. Basically the only things that could have made that thing creepier. 

_"One moment!"_

The lights flickered before shutting off entirely and your heartbeat stopped with them as you whirled around. The fear you hadn't felt until now burst forth in full force, and your fingernails dug hard into the flesh of your palms. Shit, no, you took that back, you didn't want to be alone in the dark with this thing—!

The lights flipped back on. You turned with trepidation, and very nearly screamed when you noticed. 

The thing had _moved._

_"Aaugh! … marginally better? Er — no. Worse. Worse. It's much worse."_

You agreed again. The robot, mouth now firmly closed and both eyes in order, was _leaning toward you._ You resisted the urge to shove it away, if nothing else than just to avoid bruising your knuckles trying to move a solid metal bot in a frantic panic. The lights flickered for a second time though, and even if you were marginally more prepared you still flinched. When they flipped on for a second time the damned thing had moved again, thankfully in the opposite direction. It had leant back — been pushed back? — and was now sitting upright with its arms held up like it was asking a question. 

_"Ah, there we are! Welcome… er — pretend I remembered your name here."_

You frowned through your haze. That was rude, especially considering how much trouble this was already proving to be. 

_(What was your name again?)_

Your thoughts were very promptly interrupted by the same voice, and you could do nothing but listen as he babbled about recorded messages and misplaced caution before delving into a description of your job — a volunteer, apparently. You'd volunteered to test out the _'Warfstache Automated Interview Automaton',_ or _WAIA!_ — the exclamation point seemed to be optional, but the way the voice read it you figured it may as well had been branded into the emblem — for short. That sounded about right now that you heard it, at least enough to sit back down in your seat instead of bolting for the exit like you'd been contemplating. At least the pose made more sense now. 

The voice cheerfully announced that you'd be performing some rudimentary tests, starting off with number calibration. You had questions of course, but it seemed like there was no real way to ask them, and you didn't get the chance before the freaky thing's eyes and mouth lit up, accompanied by the too-crisp sound of buttons being dialed and the high-pitched ring of an old dial-up computer. 

You didn't know exactly how to describe what the machine did next. It… twitched? Warped? _Screamed?_ None of the words you came up with matched anything about it, not the motions nor the sounds, and the latter had surprisingly been significantly scarier than the former. And yet still you didn't stand up. You stayed put, eyes locked on the robot like they'd been glued there, and you listened to it as it crackled, almost seeming to fight with its own body. If you strained yourself, you could just barely make out the vaguest hints of something — the numbers? 

The voice came back online when it was done. 

_"Now what did you hear? Numbers? Good numbers."_

You opened your mouth to correct them, but it seemed the voice had a sense of humor. 

_"Now keep in mind, I have no idea what you're actually going to say due to the fact that — as I said before — this message is pre-recorded. But if you_ did _hear something, now would be the time to speak up."_

There was a period of silence and you realized with a jolt that it was serious — or at least there was an actual space for feedback, which meant you weren't just being pranked. That was… good? Questionable? 

_Why did you take this job?_

Regardless, something was waiting and you felt compelled to answer, even if you felt a little ridiculous for speaking out loud to someone you knew wasn't listening. 

"I… think I heard numbers." 

You were, for some reason that you couldn't identify, shocked by the sound of your own voice. It _was_ yours to be certain, but you almost expected something else. Something similar, but not quite? Was it supposed to be softer? Louder? You didn't get very far either way. 

_"That's great! Or bad. Not really sure what you said."_

Yeah. Definitely had a sense of humor. 

_"But I choose to remain positive and assume that you are still alive! Which means that our automated friend here is operating well within acceptable murder parameters."_

You felt like something about that sentence needed to be revisited, but the recording was heedless and continued on the mission provided to it, and you wanted to get as much information as you could before you were left bereft of answers yet again. 

The robot — the _WAIA!_ — was apparently intended to… well. Give interviews, as the name suggested. You weren't certain in what world a robot as horrific-looking as this would be a serviceable host for that sort of thing, but perhaps whomever was in change would be fixing up its appearance if it passed the tests. Either way those doubts slipped from your mind all too easily, and the voice took no time for your confusion before it pushed you toward the next test. 

It was more involved than the first, although not by much. It essentially boiled down to a game; the robot would say a word, and you'd reply with the first thing that came to mind. It was something you were familiar with, since most children played that game at least once and adults dug up old memories when boredom struck at its height. Why, when you were in college, you'd played that game with… 

Someone.

...

_"Good luck!"_

The lights flipped off. When they flipped back on the robot had changed positions again, but that shock was nothing compared to the spike of energy you felt when it _spoke._ A tinny voice rang out from its mouth, and you furrowed your brow when you recognized the accent. 

"Initializing. Word. Association. Training. Protocol. Round. One." 

Maybe your expectations had been set too high but you were expecting more words to follow that sentence, disjointed and glitchy as it may have been. You didn't get it. 

The robot whirred, a series of heavy pulsating frequencies that almost seemed to make the air around it wither and wave. It didn't help that the glow of its eyes followed the pattern, pulsating in time with the rise and fall of the sound. It prompted you to respond afterward and you sputtered, at a loss. You'd forgotten somehow that you were meant to _reply,_ but the harder you searched for a memory to supplement it with the more blank spaces erupted to life. 

In the end, you weren't fast enough. 

"Sorry. I. Didn't. Get That. Round. Two." 

The sounds were different this time — glitchier, peaked at the top in a way that you knew would make microphones screech — but they were equally incomprehensible, and your ears were beginning to hurt by the time it finally died down. 

"Please. Respond."

You tried to form words, but they stuck fast in your throat, muted you against your will. Still not fast enough. 

"Response. Unclear. Increasing. Aggression." 

_What—?_

You scarcely got the chance to even comprehend the sentence before the lights flickered again, switched off. It was slower this time, like the operator was less practiced in their meddling, and that made it significantly worse than before. Then, just as suddenly, light. 

You could see, just barely. Not because of the single burnt out bulb above you, but the petrifying glow of those dead, glass eyes. The voice from the robot echoed in the empty room. You suddenly felt very, very afraid.

"Round. Three." 

The third round of noises was worse than the first two. A mixture of distorted frequencies and peaks, twisted into an amalgamation of sound that made your blood pulse hard behind your eyes. You flinched back, but you couldn't force yourself to so much as stand. Why? Why wouldn't your legs move?! 

"Please. Respond." 

Somehow, despite being utterly devoid of all impact or emotion, it sounded like a threat. That was the last straw, and you blurted out the only thing you could manage, eyes flitting frantically between the table and the other occupant. 

"I — uh — p—potato salad?" 

You could have slammed your face into the table for all the good that did, perhaps would have if you weren't so terrified. _Potato salad?_ Where had that even come from? You didn't even _like_ potato salad! You felt the strangest urge to laugh, near hysterics. Were your last words really going to be a food you didn't even enjoy?

_(Did you? Had you even eaten it before?)_

The robot flickered. 

"One." 

The lights went out. 

For a long, long moment, there was nothing at all. Just darkness, and the haunting after-image of those terrifying eyes. Your breathing quickened the longer it stretched, hands slowly growing more and more clammy with each passing second. 

.

.

.

"Response. Accepted."

_Ding!_

"Word. Association. Training. Protocol. Complete." 

The exhale you let out was shaky, matched perfectly with the trembling edge of your fingertips as you clutched at the edges of the desk. You were alive. 

The voice chipped in as if nothing at all was amiss, and you strangled the urge to scream at it as it recorded — what sounded like? — a passionless apology for the loss of someone's life. Honestly whatever it was only reached you halfway, ears still buzzing with a mixture of anxiety and adrenaline. You only tuned back in when you heard something strange. (Strange-er, that is.)

_How did he know you'd said potato salad?_

The next test arrived without preamble, and you remained locked in your chair by invisible chains. This time your job was to identify anything that didn't make sense — _everything,_ as the voice pointed out, wasn't making sense, but he seemed to think it was only because of the purposeful randomness of the exercise — in the speech pattern of the robot. You could have written a laundry list of issues based on the previous tests, but it wasn't like there was a pen and paper for this thing, and your throat was far too dry to allow for any more strain. That being said, you still yelped when the robot spoke again, announcing the beginnings of what you desperately hoped was the end of this phase. 

It rattled off a series of words, all in the same disjointed tone. 

Yes, no, left, right, up, down. 

_Problem detected._

It went on like that for a while. You were beginning to think it was the only normal test. 

_"Who. Am. I?"_

Your gaze snapped back from the spot on the table you'd been focusing on, heart dropping into your stomach. 

_What?_

"Green. Blue. Yellow…"

You frowned as it continued, rattled off colors instead as if the previous string had been disregarded entirely. Something felt disconnected in your chest, like there was a hole carved into your sternum where there had once been flesh and bone. 

"I. Saw. You. _Die."_

Your entire body froze. It continued speaking but you didn't hear it, bolstered by the ring in your ears.

"Hold on—"

"E—e—error. D—etected. Training. Protocol. Complete." 

Just as abruptly, the voice from before crashed your train of thought. 

_"So! How'd it go? Did you hear anything weird?"_ it chirped without care. _"Don't be shy! Or do. Or… are you alive?"_ Then, more distantly, as if the source was calling back into a larger room. _"Are they alive?"_

You wracked your brain, trying desperately to focus on anything else — anything but that final sentence that sent ice through your blood. One thing stuck out, and it was enough to make you actually laugh aloud, an edge to it that made you as uncomfortable as it did helpless to stop it. 

"It… he said — _potato salad?"_

_And also mentioned that it saw me die?_ But that sentence wouldn't leave your throat, stuck against your tongue until you felt like you might suffocate. Try as you might, you couldn't say a word.

The voice didn't miss a beat this time. 

_"Huh. Potato salad again? That's… weird. Must have really stuck in his head when you first said that — I'm guessing! I don't know what you said before."_

The voice babbled, the gist of it boiling down to a practice interview — something you were really not looking forward to considering everything that had just transpired, let alone the terrifying nature of being interviewed in the first place. But your wants and desires were discarded as easily as carbon dioxide here, and the lights flicked off and on again. At this point you were almost becoming desensitized to it, but the fact that the robot was in another position _again_ was not as easily shaken away. 

The 'interview' — and you used that term remarkably loosely — started promptly, and with a surprising amount of professionalism. The robot made an attempt at greeting an audience, hindered by the nature of the voice it had been assigned, and even played a small sample of music that may have once been exciting in its unwarped form. 

"First. Question." 

A short pause. 

"How. Many. People. Have. You. Killed?" 

The music cut off. 

Whatever you'd been preparing yourself for, it was not that. You did not speak, stunned to silence, because it seemed nothing at all about this job was ever going to be mundane. Or _safe._

The robot did not wait for an answer. 

"Good. Answer. Second. Question." 

Something… shifted. _Shifts._

There was no music. There was no light. 

"A. Man." 

You were quiet by choice, now. Your words, previously itching to escape, all died at once, not even the faintest pressure to remember them by. 

"Goes. To. A. Party." 

You were silent. 

"This. Man. Met. An. Old. Friend." 

Your shaking hands stilled. 

"The. Two. Friends. Shared. Some. Wine. The. Two. Friends. Played. A. Game." 

You were still afraid. (Right?)

"The. Most. Dangerous. Game." 

There was a sound. A pulse. A faint, distant _thud._

"I." The robot creaked, rusted hinges begging for oil. "Didn't. Know. The. Gun. Was. Loaded." 

A pause, as if for breath. You blinked. It felt like the shutter of a camera's lens. 

"I. Didn't. Know."

You did not breathe. You didn't _need_ to breathe. You weren't certain how you had forgotten that. 

You listened as the robot spoke. Asked, with a trepidation it should not have possessed. 

"Was. It. My. Fault?"

The room was silent. 

Your vision _spun._

* * *

_"Damien?"_

_You called out into the black, body shivering with a mixture of terror and cold. It was so,_ so _cold._

_"Céline?"_

_Your voice echoed in the dark, bounced against walls that you could never quite reach, no matter how close it felt like you should be. You tried to scream their names louder. Tried to beg for their presences, for an explanation, for anything that would fix what you'd seen because they promised. They promised you — they swore that they'd — that they'd—!_

_Your body shattered. Your body twitched. You ached, like every nerve had ripped itself free. God, you were so cold. You shuddered, vision flashing and shattering like the remnants of an old chandelier, and you resisted the urge to slam your head against the shattered remnants of glass._

_You tilted your head up, and your last shout dissolved into a weakened whisper._

_You were afraid._

_You were angry._

_You were betrayed._

_._

_._

_._

_You were alone._

* * *

[Second. Question. Please. Respond.]

[Yes.] (Chapter 2.)

[No.] (Chapter 3.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who are you, really? Who have you become?


	2. YES

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Was. It. My. Fault?" 
> 
> [You have chosen: YES.]

You stared forward. Locked eyes with the embodied hell you were trapped within — at the afterimage of a man who you only barely recognized. The impression of a life pressed unto sand, inches from shore, and you knew that he was to be pitied. And yet you were not an existence at all — not even gifted the boon of a final memory. You were not an after-image. You were not even a ghost. 

Your vision tilted upward until the glow of those wretched eyes left you, until the sway of a broken bulb threatened to drop shards of glass into your soul. 

You were angry. 

You were so, so _angry._

(You were afraid. 

You were so, so afraid.)

You could remember now, and you were uncertain as to how you'd ever forgotten. You could remember that party — that bullet that found its place right between your ribs, the wooden beam that had shattered beneath your weight as you fell to the ground from a story above, although you could not remember the impact. 

You remembered the pleas. One soft, familiar — an old… what you _thought_ was a friend. One firm, demanding in her certainty, but reassuring in her kindness. 

You remembered the cold. The betrayal. 

You remembered death. 

"Yes," you whispered. It was barely a breath. Barely a sound at all. The robot shuddered. William shook under the weight of your judgement. 

_It's your fault._

_(It's not.)_

_It was you._

_(It was them.)_

An echo of an old voice, an older friend. (A traitor? A liar? Wasn’t that all of them combined? Was it still taboo to speak ill of the dead when one was condemned to something worse?)

_(“It’s not fair, is it?”)_

"I'm sorry. for everything. that I've done." 

You froze. Looked back at the shell as it trembled. 

"I don't remember. who I was. I wish I did." 

The voice bordered on soft as it whispered. A soft, melancholy mumble, broken and weary, heavier than the chains that bound you both to this hell. 

"But I... am... _sorry."_

A guilt-laden, mournful apology. A thousand words wrapped up in four, a million in a bow. Something long dead in you pulled taut, shattered in two right down the middle like a perfect glass jar. 

You were angry. Yes, you were so, so angry. 

But behind that anger, behind the burning, agonizing _rage,_ you were hurt. 

And as much as you desperately wished to, you did not hate them. 

Your very being ached, shivered and faltered under the weight of your existence, the wrongness of your non-corporeal fingertips touching wood. Your hands trembled where they lay on the table. You were running out of time, you realized suddenly. You didn't know how you knew, but you were running out of it, and as soon as it ended—!

You reached out. You were too late. 

.

.

.

"Potato. Salad." 

_Ding!_

Your vision swam into focus as air flew back into your lungs and you gasped for it, whatever thought you'd been having moments before slipping away into the void. 

_What were you..?_

"Great. Answer." The robot said before beginning an all-too-long finishing speech for a pseudo-interview you'd never even participated in. 

You tuned it out in an attempt to keep your composure — you _really_ didn't like how that thing kept acting like you'd given it some kind of reply, especially since it hadn't even properly asked a question that time. It was probably for the best that the lights hadn't gone out at least. You had a terrible feeling that you wouldn't be able to take it if it had, although you weren't exactly sure why. 

Strangely enough, you actually felt more irritated than you did afraid; it seemed that exposure therapy truly was the cure to all ills, even if the issue in question was an objectively terrifying robot and faulty electricity. Maybe you'd be able to fix one of the two, given the time — it would be nice to know that the machine wouldn't pose such terrifying questions to the next unlucky guest. 

The voice returned of course. Just as cheerful as ever, your employer — ? — gushed with fervor about his premature victory. Honestly you hoped that these sessions were recorded so you wouldn't have to break the bad news yourself; there was absolutely no way this machine would be able to conduct interviews without a large amount of maintenance first, and that was far outside of a random employees pay grade. The sheer scale of the issues it could cause made your head throb, and you grumbled as you wiped at your face — were you sweating? Why did your hands come away wet? 

The door you'd entered from popped open as you were unceremoniously dismissed, drawing your attention to it immediately. You sighed, pushed your chair out, and cracked your neck a little. It had gotten pretty stiff. 

(Perhaps when you got home, you would finally be able to rest.)

.

.

.

[Ending 1 of 2: _To Forgive.]_  
  



	3. NO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Was. It. My. Fault?"
> 
> [You have chosen: NO.]

You stared at him. At the shell of a man — of a consciousness. At the remnants of a stranger that could have become your friend, had things been just a bit different that day. Had life not saw fit to throw you all to the wolves, had your companions not stuck their blades into the space between your ribs. 

It ached. You had forgotten the pain of it all — had neglected the agony of your every nonexistent breath. You had forgotten how much it hurt to remember, to know that you were not given even the smallest of mercies; to know that you were utterly alone, betrayed and forgotten. The anger rose anew in that moment, bubbled up and threatened to boil over. To boil you both alive, brought back from the brink — in that moment, you desperately, _desperately_ wanted to say yes. 

But you looked. Hesitated. Just for one moment, you stopped and looked at the truth of that robotic body. Lingered on the faint glimpses you could catch of old memories, traced the lines of withered metal and the consequences of broken wires. You opened your mouth, battled with your soul. 

Eventually, you spoke. 

"...no." 

Because that was the truth of it, wasn't it. As much as you hated it, hated him, hated them, hated, hated, _hated,_ it was not his fault. Not entirely. It was nobody's fault, and that was not justice — even now that rattled your battered bones. 

You looked at that pitiful robot, at the final effort of a maddened man, and you could only see the twist of his scream. You could only see his wide eyes and his frantic hands as he reached for a lost cause, could only hear the shattered edge to his broken laughter when you unwillingly rose from the grave, bound and twisted by the wretched curse of that house. Your abdomen burned with old pain, your mouth tasted of rust and iron. And yet again, you spoke. Again, you pitied. 

Wilford. _William._ The Colonel. 

You swallowed hard around your hatred, shoved down your grief. And you did what a district attorney ought to do, one last time. 

You told him the truth. 

"It wasn't your fault." 

The robot — _he_ — shuddered. Twitched as the glow of his eyes flickered and burned. 

"You can't. change. the past."

His voice was soft. Broken and exhausted, tinged with regret so thick the air turned to sulfur. 

"You can tell all. the stories. you want to tell. It won't. change. what happened. You can't. rewrite. the past. If you live in fantasy forever. you'll lose yourself. in the story."

You hadn't thought of the depths of his hatred, his curse, buried deep down and scalded into the foundations of his very soul. Directed not at you, not at them — but at himself. Only himself. 

He could not, and would not, ever forgive himself for what he had done. He would never be free, much in the way that you would never be. The difference laid only in the warden — his self-imposed, yours an endless abyss. But even in his madness, he would not escape. Not even for a moment. 

And you pitied him, the maddened man tarnished pink with his own terror. The proud colonel, reduced to the fodder of the wind. Even if you couldn't forgive, you could _understand._

"..."

The world flickered. You closed your eyes, and vanished into the abyss again. 

.

.

.

"Potato. Salad."

_Ding!_

Your vision swam into focus as air flew back into your lungs and you gasped for it, whatever thought you'd been having moments before slipping away into the void. 

_What were you..?_

"Great. Answer." The robot said before beginning an all-too-long finishing speech for a pseudo-interview you'd never even participated in. 

You tuned it out in an attempt to keep your composure — you _really_ didn't like how that thing kept acting like you'd given it some kind of reply, especially since it hadn't even properly asked a question that time. It was probably for the best that the lights hadn't gone out at least. You had a terrible feeling that you wouldn't be able to take it if it had, although you weren't exactly sure why. 

What you did know for certain was that this was a job you never wanted to take again — you weren't sure how it had been assigned to you, but you were going to leave as soon as physically possible. Whatever you had been trying to achieve was in the past, and the future was an entirely undefined prospect. 

The voice returned of course. Just as cheerful as ever, your employer — ? — gushed with fervor about his premature victory, something about the robot having a full scan of his _brain,_ which was an entirely different issue. Honestly you hoped that these sessions were recorded so you wouldn't have to break the bad news yourself; there was absolutely no way this machine would be able to conduct interviews without a large amount of maintenance first, and that was far outside of a random employees pay grade. The sheer scale of the issues it could cause made your head throb, and you grumbled as you wiped at your face — were you sweating? Why did your hands come away wet? 

The door you'd entered from popped open as you were unceremoniously dismissed, drawing your attention to it immediately. You sighed, pushed your chair out, and cracked your neck a little. It had gotten pretty stiff. 

(You felt like you were forgetting something. Oddly enough, you felt lighter for it.)

.

.

.

[Ending 2 of 2: _To Forget.]_

**Author's Note:**

> Who are you, really? Who have you become?


End file.
